A/N - First in a series of one-shot stories. All can be read separately, or as a whole story collection- it is up to the reader to decide.

Any and all thoughts would be appreciated, even if they may say that I am a talentless hack who needs to stop. :-)

It began with a battle. The Krir had invaded yet again, and he being who he was had to fight them. He had not known that in fighting his king would be killed, that he would be crowned in his stead. No, not then. In battle, he had known only one thing - the heat and haze of the fight. It was after, when he found the body of his lord, that he knew the doom that had fallen on him. He, one of the scant few who was left alive after the battle - after the war. The knowing came later, when after the battle he was approached by his sister and her son.

“Remember what I told you,” she had said softly. “You will be king. And you will die because of it.”

He had dismissed her words with a wave of his had. “I am one of the few left who can still fight, yes, but I know nothing of the laws of our land. They will not want me to be king.”

“You were a man of peace then,” his sister had said, “before the battle. They will not forget what you were - what you are.”

“No,” he had replied, shaking his head. “They will not wish me to be king.”

If only he had been right. A month later, the war was over, peace had been made with the Krir - and there was a new king upon the throne. A king of the people, one who they remembered as a man of peace. He, the first to spring to the king’s call when the Krir invaded. He, one of the few men left standing. He was their new king.

Perhaps, he thought, his sister’s vision had been correct after all.

Some hours later, as he lay on the floor dying, he knew that it had been correct.

He walked over to where she stood at the window, staring at the falling snow. “Lina?” he asked tersely. “What is wrong, that you do not speak?”

Her answer was the same, unchanged. “Nothing. I had a dream, that is all.”

“A dream of what?” he asked, unnerved. His sister’s dreams were renowned as being prophetic throughout their village.

“It was about you,” she remarked softly. “You were dying.”

He took a step forward, wrapped his arm around her shoulder, to comfort her. “Of what?”

“You had been poisoned.” Her voice was stiff, emotionless, as chill as the snow outside the window. “You were poisoned, by me.”

He laughed, relieved, and took her cold hands in his. “Then I should not fear, and nor should you. There is nothing you would kill me for, nothing I hold that you would not share.”

She did not meet his eyes. “Nothing,” she replied evenly, “save kingship.”

“And that,” he had said, “is something I will never hold. Fear not.”

He recalled her vision now, cursing that he had not been wise enough to see it for what it was. She was his sister, his friend. He had thought that she loved him enough to see his position as king as nothing more than what it was - a nuisance, a bother, something he wanted nothing to do with. The thought that she would violate that trust for such a simple thing sickened him more than the poison she had put in his wine. The poison . . . he shuddered and clutched at his abdomen as another wave of pain washed over him. He should have known, should have at least thought it odd that she gave him his wine, she, not the page that normally served him. He should have known that the wine was laced with poison - it had not tasted right, had not slid across his tongue with the same fluid movement. He had not thought that she would dare make the vision true. Now, as the world slowly faded into black, he knew. He knew his sister’s true nature.

“The King is dead. Long live the Queen.”